"I love my wife because she calls me out whenever I'm wrong, corrects my faults, and keeps me on the right path." ...said no real man, ever.
That's not why a real man loves his wife. So why can't women figure this out? Maybe it's because the men can't even figure it out.
Perhaps it's because there exist so many fake men, so many wormboys—artists, poets, and song writers—who, for whatever reason, can't stop themselves from spewing this kind of subordinatory drivel out of some pseudo-romantic, acquiescent emotion with which they are scarcely in touch, and which they obviously have not taken the time to assess or evaluate.
A real man may, in fact, appreciate his wife's ability to do this at times, but if he's a real man, this is not why he loves her. He loves her for other reasons, but this is not one of them.
Ladies: I have a hard truth for you. If your most valuable attribute to your husband is your ability to correct him, then you have married a child. He looks up to you like an infant boy looks up to his mother who provides all his needs for satisfaction in life. And that list of needs is woefully short: a breast on which to suckle, blankets and a bosom to keep him warm, and someone to change his diapers when he's made a mess of things.
But I think we can all agree that boys should grow up. They should become men, right? And what is a man, compared to a boy? Feminists don't really give a damn, because they're only all about what women want to become. We hear a lot from the feminists about how they should be recognized for being potentially as accomplished as men in society at large, but we don't hear much about their views on manhood. The feminists seem eager to take on carefully selected traditional roles of men, but they seem to lack a plan wherein the traditional roles of women might still be addressed. In other words, "Who's gonna raise the kids?"
Well, I suppose their lockstep answer would be something like, "Indeed, men! Who's gonna do that? We think it's high time you acknowledged our contribution in this effort, and we think it's time for you to step up to the plate and contribute something." —as if the traditional male roles contributed nothing to the care and welfare of the man's children.
So let me get this straight... A man who can live comfortably enough by himself on $30,000 a year gets married. He now finds the need to better himself at work in order to bring home more money, in order to offer his wife a more comfortable lifestyle than what he, himself, would require. "No problem," he says to himself, "I can do this." So he works some extra hours, takes on more responsibility, and increases his income.
Now, this is a dynamic which is beneficial to everyone involved. The wife is well cared for, the husband is enlarged and ennobled by his accomplishment, his employer is able to expand his own enterprise... everybody wins. This is the traditional model.
Suddenly, a child is born. Now comes a whole new set of requirements, mostly involving provision—the need for more money. There's hospital bills, baby food, diapers, a larger apartment... The man's world is expanding, as his scope of responsibility also expands. He had a wife. Now he has a wife and a child. His wife might have been able to withstand a week's delay in buying groceries; his baby needs food and diapers every day. The man must rise to the occasion. Whereas in the past he could plan weeks in advance, he must now look at months. Also, his income needs to increase. He needs to make more money.
So he invests more of himself at work. Regrettably, this might require more time away from his wife and children, and it is up to him to find the right balance. Watch carefully as he attempts to address his wife's subtle, yet contradictory demands of both money and his time. He is now walking the tightrope, and the balance can be elusive. Sadly, money usually gets the nod, for it is more easily quantified. The time thing is more abstract. So most men fail in the long run, either on one front or the other.
So women: what's your assessment of this? Are you really going to assert that men have traditionally failed in their contribution to raising the children? I think if you are reasonably astute, you will not. I think you will rather observe that the man has spent himself, as much as have you, in the overall effort. Let's not disregard the fact that the man might have lived by himself comfortably enough over the years on one quarter or one tenth the income required to have accomplished his chosen path. Has it all really cost him nothing? I think not.
And the key word here is "chosen." The man made a choice. Whether he knew or had considered the cost a priori, he made a choice. He chose to get married. They both chose to have children. (Sometimes it goes the other way. Sometimes things happen first, then you make the choice to see it through responsibly. In either case, a choice is made.) I think that few fathers really understand the total cost of fatherhood before becoming fathers, and perhaps the same could be said of mothers. Nonetheless, when faced with the costs, we humans tend to rise to the occasion and pay. Both mothers and fathers usually rise and pay; we give as we are called to give, for we love our children more than anything else. Some do not. Some fail, and those are very sad stories.
And some men are brute bastards who come home from work and expect their wives to cater to their every whim, giving no regard to her contribution of hard work while he was at work. This should disgust us all, for no decent man would advocate for him.
But then some wives are just total bitches who save up all their venomous vitreol all day so they can unload it onto their husbands each night upon his arrival from work. This should equally disgust us, for no decent woman would advocate for her. Right?
So we can set aside the extremes, recognizing that they (these extreme examples)
- are not representative of any established or accepted norm, and
- likely would offer opinions which should be ignored and excluded from our discussion.
Most men, I believe, would like to be better at acknowledging their wives' contribution. Every real man I know has the deep-seated drive to successfully provide, just as most women are naturally driven to care for and nurture their children. Some women fail, however, to recognize the need for and value of their very specific talent and gift, just as some men are lazy consumer wormboys who never get the hint that they should be producers and providers.
I wonder where the feminists fall on this spectrum. As I listen to them pontificate and preach their values, I find myself thinking, "Is this supposed to be normal? Is this even part of a rational discussion? I wonder which kind of wife she would be..."
I don't need the world's women to stand and offer cheers of adulation over the men's contribution. And men who do nothing but complain about women should really just shut up. Likewise, it seems like women who do nothing but complain about men should, you know, do the same.
The women who are out there harping on about how they've been minimalized by the patriarchy should really just pause and ask themselves, "Do I want love, or do I want equality?" Because I fear that they cannot have both, really. Because her ability to be "equal" to him is not why he loves her. That's Not Why I Love My Wife.